The latest government’s decisions on squid fishing show that the national fisheries policy is “inconsistent and unsustainable,” according to the president of Assistance Food Argentina SA and director of Assistance Food America Inc., Dr. Cesar Augusto Lerena.
In an article he sent to FIS.com, Lerena argues that “it is not possible to think of a sustainable capture” of squid (Illex argentinus), and “much less that it serves as a tool to recover the Falklands islands, if this indiscriminate policies of transfer of the South Atlantic to foreign hands continue being implemented.”
Lerena evaluates the Argentinean fisheries situation given the open status of the sea to foreign fleets, and in particular, to Chinese jiggers.
In this regard, he recalls that according to Resolution No. 10/2013, published in August by the Federal Fisheries Council (CFP), the Government will allow the entry of 20 Chinese jiggers to the Argentina’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to capture squid. And he notes that to authorise such openness it has been argued that there had been available surpluses that could not be captured by national jiggers.
“The officers on duty are accustomed to giving Argentinean fisheries resources to the United Kingdom in the Falklands islands, also to the Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, Japanese, etc. for free; at least nothing that can benefit the national state or the activity, and that can ensure the perpetuity of the resources for future generations,” states the executive.
This leads to the conclusion that “in Argentina there is no fisheries policy and the rationale to justify the objective is created by the ruling power without biological, productive or even political rigour.”
In reference to the above resolution, Lerena notes that to the fleet of 62 national jiggers 20 vessels would be added and still we would be below the 104 jiggers “that the CFP arbitrarily set as a maximum in 2006.”
And he thinks that the argument used in this legislation is “inconsistent and unsustainable,” since it does not take into account several aspects such as:
The biology and the interrelationship among species;
Illegal licenses granted to the United Kingdom from the Falklands Islands;
The illegal fishing of a major foreign fleet entering the Argentinean Sea;
The migratory nature of the squid.
With regard to the last item, he explains that the squid migrates every year from the Argentinean waters to offshore and around the Falkland Islands, “when the foreign fleet catches it, before this species can return to the waters of the Argentinean mainland.”
Lerena argues that if there was a surplus of squid, “its capture should be promoted first for the national fleet; after which, it would be possible to deal with the countries concerned (in this case it would be China) establishing two preconditions.”
These conditions would be:
No fishing with British licenses from the Falklands Islands in Argentinean waters;
Being a migratory resource and in observance of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the squid should not be captured at sea without prior agreement with Argentina.
“Meanwhile, the Government makes it clear the existence of inconsistency, unsustainability and lack of plans to defend the fisheries resource, the market competition, Argentinean employment and national sovereignty,” concludes Lerena in his article.
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